This invention relates generally to sights for acquiring a distal target, and more specifically to illuminated sights having an artificially lighted sight point.
One major component of a traditional archery sight is the front circular sight aperture used for aiming. During aiming, the sight aperture is optically aligned with the rear circular peep (located in the bowstring) to form a sight picture used for consistent aiming. Sight apertures typically have pins for the different yardages, such as 20, 30, 40 yards, and so on. Throughout the years, many sight apertures with different configurations, each offering their own advantages, have been proposed. For example, sight apertures have included different geometries such as circular shapes, D shapes, oval shapes, and so on, as well as different configurations for the sight pins or sight points, such as brass pins, black pins, fiber optic glow pins, red dot sights, and so on.
Although such sight pins are adequate for their intended use in many cases, the relative brightness and size of such pins can be difficult to control. With a wide variability in ambient light conditions and distances between a user and a target, the control of the brightness and size of such devices becomes important. In addition, the provision of large sight pins or illuminated dots, as well as a plurality of sight pins within the same sight aperture, can result in partial or complete obscuration of the target. In an effort to overcome some of these disadvantages, an archery sight assembly has been proposed where a LED is bonded to the surface of a lens and used as a sight dot that reduces target obscuration while allowing adequate control over the LED brightness. However, this system is problematic in that the LED may be inadvertently bumped, scratched, or contacted by the user, brush, or other foreign objects under typical hunting conditions.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a sight assembly that overcomes one or more disadvantages of the prior art.